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Maria Olson and Magnus Dahlstedt
200 | P a g e
Citizen formation for a new millennium in Sweden – a
prognosis of our time
Maria Olson, Stockholm University and University of Skövde, Sweden
and Magnus Dahlstedt, Linköping University, Sweden
Abstract
The aim of this article is to forecast the present situation of
citizenship formation in the field of Swedish education. In
highlighting trends and tendencies in the educational assignment
to provide for democratic citizenship in the first decade of the 21st
century, which can be characterised as lacking collective visions
for change, three depictions of citizenship are prevailing:
citizenship formation for deliberation, for entrepreneurship and for
therapeutic intervention. These depictions are analysed in terms
of the direction for action taking and attention that they stress and
produce as concerns citizenship in the making. The first one,
citizenship formation for deliberation, stresses an inward-looking
and inward-feeling citizenship. The second one, citizenship
formation for entrepreneurship, stresses an inward-looking and
outward-making citizenship, and the third one, citizenship
formation for therapeutic intervention, stresses an inward-looking
and outward-making citizenship. Taking on this forecast, which
actualises democracy as something that is already achieved as a
consequence of an assumedly post political situation, we argue
that citizenship as well as society itself risks being pictured as
apolitical and democratically “saturated.” This situation is
hazardous, we argue, as it does not open up for change to come
into question as desirable or even possible. Put differently, it
leaves us with the notion that things have to be as they are, as
we are living in the best of worlds.
Keywords: citizenship, citizenship education, citizen formation,
education, democracy, apolitical
Introduction
Education is not only a matter of knowledge and skills but also of
training—of forming the citizen of tomorrow. In a historical light, it
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becomes obvious that this citizen will not be one and the same, but one
who rather takes on many different shapes. Each and every one of these
shapes reflects a certain time and place, each and every one with his or
her own history of origin. In order to see and relate to these shapes, like
to our own time, we need to move sideways. Dramatic and revolutionary
present-time events shake us, affect our secure and habitual ways, and
positioning oneself a bit further away when observing and studying these
contemporary events could make visible things which otherwise are
taken for granted.
The citizen-training role of education needs to be understood from its
given historical and social context. It is about seeing the role of education
in the society, which surrounds it and, inversely, seeing in what way this
society is shaping this role. In this article, we want to study our own time
with the issue of the role of education as our basis when it comes to the
training of today and tomorrow’s citizens. We focus on Sweden as a
concrete and visualized place and community, and we set out from our
own time as our basis, the early 21st century, with the purpose of
visualizing our own time and society from a specific national context—
Sweden. In short, we are trying to make a diagnosis of our time from
“case Sweden” in order to raise a general question—what (Western
liberal) citizen ideals take shape as obvious when it comes to what
education is providing training for? How can we understand these citizen
ideals from the social conditions and contexts which we are a part of and
through which we live our lives?
The structure of this article is as follows: Firstly, we will describe the
concept of citizenship. After this, a description of the Swedish
educational context—historically and in the light of today—will follow,
based on the issue of the role and function of education in this society.
Thereafter, we will focus on three central configurations of citizenship-in-
the-making taking shape today. Then some typical characteristics of
these three configurations will be presented before we finally will raise
some related questions based on our analysis.
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Citizenship as citizenship formation
The issue of the role of citizenship training in education is connected to a
disputed term in social science, namely citizenship. According to an
established definition, citizenship can be seen as a contract between an
individual and the state, which guarantees the member of the community
a number of rights—civil, political, and social—but also obligations
(Marshall, 1950). This contract is the result of negotiations between state
and individual or between different groups of individuals (Tilly, 1995).
The contract has specific meanings regarding the role of citizen training
in education (see for example Dahlstedt, Rundqvist and Vesterberg,
2013; McDonough and Feinberg, 2006; Olson, 2008, 2012d).
Lately, a number of researchers have emphasized dimensions of the
term citizenship other than those that put the judicial dimension and the
relation between state and individual in the foreground. One can here
point to the fact that citizenship also includes collective, social and
cultural dimensions, among other things identity (Arnot and Dillabough,
2000) and citizen participation in civic life. In this context, a door has
been opened for a broader view of citizenship as “a total relation, which
concerns identity, social positions, cultural concepts, institutional
practices and a sense of belonging” (Werbner and Yuval-Davis, 1999, p.
4). Citizenship is in this light seen as action; i.e. not only as something
that people have or are, but also as something that is being done or
carried out (van Gunsteren, 1998). In order to understand how citizens
are trained, we need to, in view of this, study a number of conditions,
phenomena and processes in society. One important part is to take a
closer look at the prevailing way of thinking around citizenship and
citizens within the framework of
education (Olson, 2008, 2012c; Dahlstedt and Olson, 2013).
Against this backdrop, in this article we want to start from a perspective
of citizenship, which approaches a citizenship as something not already
given, but a formation and continuing process (Cruikshank, 1999; White
and Hunt, 2000; Procacci, 2004). This perspective can aptly be
summarized in Barbara Cruikshank’s (1999, p. 3) words: “Citizens are
created, not born.” In this light, citizenship does not have a natural, given
essence, but instead it is about the continual creation of citizens and
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citizenship as such. This argument seems to contradict the quote used –
the quote says clearly that citizens are not created, constructed,
improved! Please change to reconcile this conflict. From this aspect, one
could just as well talk about citizenship in terms of citizen formation, a
perpetually ongoing process of creation, which takes place in a great
number of places and domains (Dahlstedt, 2009). Citizenship is then not
only about a relation between an individual and the state. The citizen can
rather be seen as the result of a changing training project on a large
scale, which is both life-long and life-wide. This training project never
ends; it goes on during a whole lifetime. It is enacted not only within the
field of education, but to the same extent also outside of it, not least in
people’s every-day life (Andersson, 2013; Olson, 2012c; Olson, Fejes,
Dahlstedt and Nicoll, 2014).
From this viewpoint, the study of the citizen training role in education is
about examining the perpetually on going creation of a potential citizen, a
creation which takes place through a wide set of citizen-formation
practices everywhere in society (Nicoll, Fejes, Olson, Dahlstedt and
Biesta, 2013). This study can be described as an analysis that aims to
provide a prognosis of our present time that focuses on the very role of
education for civic citizen educators as well as for citizenship in general.
The Swedish educational context
A historical overview of Swedish – from centeredness on the collective to
centeredness on the individual
Since the Second World War, the Swedish education system has
undergone major changes. Education was a cornerstone of the “Swedish
model,” the Social Democratic welfare model that emerged in Sweden in
the post-war period (Esping-Andersen, 1990). The organization of the
Swedish education system rested on the main pillars of non-segregation,
social levelling, equality, general citizen-competence, and public
responsibility for education (Lindensjö and Lundgren, 2002). One
overarching objective of education policy in the “Swedish model” was to
gradually level social and economic gaps and thereby to counteract the
most polarizing effects of the market. Swedish education policy was
dominated by a view of education as a “public good” (Englund, 1996).
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Under such an education policy, every individual should be guaranteed
the right to equal education, understood and institutionally underpinned
as a fundamental social right. However, by the end of the 1980s, the
perception of the role of education in Swedish politics changed. From
having been regarded as a “public good,” schools have come to be seen
more as a “private good” (Englund, 1996; Labaree, 1997). The focus
shifted towards individual choice, parental responsibility for education,
efficiency and competition, together with the development of individual
competence as guiding principles of how schools should be run.
An increased emphasis on the principle of freedom of choice, for
example, is a central feature of the education reforms implemented in the
1990s. The principle of equality, in the sense of equal outcomes, was
gradually replaced by the principle of equity, in the sense of opportunities
(Lindensjö and Lundgren, 2000; Olson, 2006, 2008b). An important part
of the political context of this shift was also an idea that became more
widely held during this time, according to which education was seen as
an investment whose rewards could be evaluated in terms of increased
growth and international competitiveness. In this context, the focus for
educating citizens was increasingly directed toward the labour market.
The increasingly overall objective of education is to create
competitiveness. The meaning of education is hereby changed, from a
fundamental social right to a commodity, in relation both to the
population inside of the borders and outward to the surrounding world.
As in many other countries, it was more common to describe education
in terms of “human capital,” i.e. as some kind of human “raw material”
which can be refined in order to make profit (Simons and Masschelein,
2008; Gillies, 2011). When summarizing the main lines of development in
Swedish education over the past two decades, one can thus say that
during this period a significant change in the way in which education is
imagined has occurred, in terms of both its design and its role in society.
From essentially having been imagined as a social collective project, with
the means to redistribute resources and to deal with socio-economic
divisions in society, education has increasingly come to be defined as an
individual project, with an increasing emphasis on individual choice,
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responsibility and equivalence as the guiding principles shaping
education policy (Olson, 2008a).
A Sweden today without visions
In the new millennium, the absence of visions in Sweden is obvious. The
social background is one of threats. The changes to our climate, threats
of terror, epidemics, natural disasters, and the global financial crisis are
illustrative examples of this threat of the political climate. At the same
time, there is a great deal of concern about increasing passivity and
mistrust among the citizens, who then also in the long run are seen as
real “threats against democracy” (Dahlstedt, 2009; see also Irisdotter
Aldenmyr, Jepson Wigg and Olson, 2012). In the centre of politics we
find, just like in the 1990s, the individual rather than the collective. (S) he
is at the dawn of the new millennium, however, more explicitly linked to a
defined order—democracy is, to a large extent, understood by a fixed set
of principles and values to which the citizen should adapt. The principal
challenge seems to be forming participating and tolerant citizens as a
counterweight to passivity and intolerance, which are seen as a cause
behind a further aggravating threatening situation in society (Government
report, SOU 1997:121). In this situation, the faith in people’s active
participation becomes vital. Participation in itself is seen as having a
“civilizing” effect on both society and individual, which among other
things is clear from the final Government report of the Democracy
commission [Demokratiutredningen]—A sustainable democracy
(Government report, SOU 2000:1).
By participating, the citizens develop fundamental qualities in society. Mutually respectful citizens generate a great human and social capital, which benefits all spheres of society. A person who does not receive similar training in creating trust by being tolerant toward people with different opinions loses the chance for training and breeding of their more primitive instincts (p. 33).
Although there are movements that insist “another world is possible,” it
does not appear as if there are many “great stories” in politics, no really
explicit political coordinates. In times of threats, the preservation of the
prevalent order becomes what matters most. Development seems to
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partly have reached its final destination. As argued by Author 2 et al.
(Tesfahuney and Dahlstedt, 2008), we are living in the best of worlds.
The visionary force that nevertheless is fostered at this time can, for
example, be found in the field of the supranational economy. In the so-
called Lisbon declaration of 2000, the European Commission among
others formulated the goal that Europe within a ten-year period would
become “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy in the
world” (Commission of the European Communities, 2001, p. 1). In the
beginning of the new millennium, the support for this sort of description
of Sweden today is even greater than in the 1990s (Olson, 2012b).
Social policy and labour-market politics are first and foremost aimed at
labour-market supply, for example the workforce, with the ambition to
create a more competitive “knowledge economy.” The social-welfare
systems are made more cost-efficient in order to safeguard a “positive
entrepreneur environment” and that way acquire employment for people
(Rothstein and Vahlne Westerhäll, 2005). Another expression of the
relatively visionless spirit characterizing the new millennium is that the
ideological scale is decreasing. It becomes increasingly difficult to
distinguish political alternatives, and politics is gradually transformed into
“a social administration run by experts” (Mouffe, 2005; Žižek, 1999), a
line-up of seemingly neutral technocrats used for correcting various
social wrongs and problems in society.
In this crisis, a therapeutic interpretation framework seems to offer ways
of describing contemporary problems as well as the solutions that can
handle these very problems (Furedi, 2004; Fejes and Dahlstedt, 2012).
Not least for pedagogues (Grönlien Zetterqvist and Irisdotter Aldenmyr,
2013). This interpretation framework, which takes shape as part of the
value-system commitment in Swedish schools (Englund and Englund,
2012), hardly runs counter to an economically oriented interpretation
framework. Rather than that, there are quite a few parallels. In both
cases, it is the individual who is in focus: her/his behaviour, thoughts,
and emotions. The environment in which the individual is found is in the
background; as social, political, and financial circumstances. In both
cases, it is the individual who is the root of the problem and who holds
the key to the solution. In relation to the market-oriented understanding,
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which since the 1990s has dominated, the recipe for success in a
therapeutic perception is not only to focus on oneself, but also to actively
work on caring about oneself, to look inwardly, see one’s own true self,
and disregard difficulties and problems, trying to see one’s “inner”
potential as a first step of making changes in life (Gunnarsson, 2013;
Irisdotter Aldenmyr, 2012). It is about reviewing one’s thinking: to see
possibilities—not problems (Ehrenreich, 2010). We can see the upsurge
in the phenomenon of coaching as one example of the impact of different
kinds of therapeutic work methods in the new millennium, not least in
professional contexts. In order to find (and keep) employment, the most
important thing is to develop the “right” attitude—to look, dress, and
behave “right” (Vesterberg, 2011).
All in all, this more or less visionless present-day Sweden is
characterized by an ambition to secure the principles of democracy and
the market by having the citizens making them their own. Critical thinking
is a given part of this implementation project of certain values; however
this kind of thinking no longer seems to have a clear relation to the
ambition to accomplish a change in society. Change will at this time
rather be seen as something threatening, something which might end up
badly, something characterized by risks which must be avoided for as
long as possible in order to maintain the established order. It is against
the backdrop of this community form that the educational citizen
formation of the new millennium takes shape.
Education and citizen training
In this age, the role of educational citizen formation at the turn of the
millennium in Sweden takes shape as a project with the purpose of
equipping the individuals for times of preservation and dystopia. We will
give three examples of this citizen-training project: training through a
certain form of deliberation, training for entrepreneurship, and training
through therapeutic intervention.
Citizen training for deliberation
Training for deliberation is about seeing to the ability and willingness of
individuals to discuss as a democratic potential. Critical understanding in
and through communication is included as a central element in this
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training—but also to apply a certain kind of knowledge, to “establish a
democratic consciousness” (Government bill, 2001/02: 80, p. 116). This
is, however, during the first decade of the 21st century declining as a
form of training and it rather takes shape as “a reproduction of norms
and values” (The National Agency for Education [NAE], 2001b, p. 45)
than as questioning the prevailing norms and calls for change.
Just like in the 1990s, reciprocity in encounters, as central in the role of
education when it comes to raising a democratic mind, is emphasized. A
vital difference, however, is that this reciprocity in the 21st century takes a
certain systematic shape —it is about paving the way for talks,
deliberative talks. At the turn of the millennium, reports and policy
documents are added where this form of discourse becomes the starting
point for the democratic civic function of education (Englund, 2000; NAE,
2000a, 2000b, 2001b). NAE (2000a, p. 58) states, for example, in a
report that it is through deliberation that everybody’s “understanding of
oneself and others is developed.” Deliberative talks, talks that are just in
the sense that everybody has a chance to be heard, are emphasized as
the lifeblood of democracy. It is in and through talks like these that
individuals are shaped into responsible, tolerant, and active citizens. The
education system is in this context described, just like in the 1990s, as
one of the most central meeting points in society where various people
meet in and through talks (NAE, 2000b; Zackari and Modigh, 2000). In
light of this, an important challenge in the education for democracy will
be to evoke a willingness to talk.
In this democratic citizen training, which has been highlighted as a
communicative anchoring process, where values and norms are created
collectively and through deliberations and agreements in and through
talks, the importance of questioning and critical reflections are
emphasized as a condition in order for this process to contribute to the
development of a “democratic mentality.” “To question and critically
interpret, assess and discuss fundamental values in school and
preschool is an essential condition for keeping and developing
democracy. Values must be made visible, known, confronted and
discussed in order for the ‘democratic mentality’ of children and
adolescents to develop” (Zackari and Modigh, 2000, pp. 8–9).
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All in all, however, this approach becomes somewhat altered and also
muted in Swedish schools in the early 21st century in favour of other
ideas for citizen training. This happens above all when the establishing of
a desire for discussion among people in school, where critical
questioning is central in the democratic citizen training. In this training
increased significance is given to a quite fixed kind of deliberative, rule-
oriented knowledge; a knowledge that implies that the students should
learn how to think and talk rationally, by testing different arguments for
action (Bergh, Englund, Englund, Engström and Engström, 2013). With
this, the development of a “democratic mentality” will in and through
discussions to some extent serve as a visionary image of the civic
citizen-training role of education.
Citizen training for entrepreneurship
At the same time as it is regarded that democracy in the early 21st
century needs to be strengthened and safeguarded through talks, the
adjustment to changes and needs in people’s working lives—just like in
the 1990s—is a continuous dominant theme in the education policies of
the new millennium. The main purpose of education from this
perspective is to meet the labour market’s need for a skilled workforce.
Entrepreneurship becomes a keyword in this context (Dahlstedt and
Hertzberg, 2011). Entrepreneurship training will, to a high degree, be
about training individuals for wanting to take responsibility for their own
lives.
Within the European Union, at the turn of the millennium, there is an
animated discussion on how the union can strengthen its
competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. Here, “lifelong
learning” is promoted as an important part of the economic growth
potential of education: “the emphasis on lifelong learning is a condition
for a successful transformation into a knowledge-based economy and a
knowledge-based society.” Lifelong learning is here seen as a
prerequisite for the individual as well as for society. “All the people who
live in Europe—with no exception—should have the same opportunities
to adjust to the demands caused by changes in society and the
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economy, and actively take part in the shaping of the future of Europe”
(The departments of the EU commission, 2000, p. 3).
The individual as a learning subject is in focus. State responsibility for
her/his learning will be transferred to the citizen herself/himself. To
“create opportunities and incentives for individuals, businesses, and
governmental actors in order to invest in education and learning”
becomes the responsibility of the state (NAE, 2001a, p. 12). The
keyword is investment; education and learning should be understood as
something that “individuals, businesses, and governmental actors” invest
in. The reform of secondary education—senior high school—is here a
telling example of the special kind of adjustment to a working life, which
takes place in the early years of the new millennium (Dahlstedt and
Hertzberg, 2011; Lundahl and Olson, 2013; Öhrn, Lundahl and Beach,
2011). If the ambition of the education policy in the early post-war years
was to step by step create a school for all students, the reform of
secondary education in the new millennium to an extent means a return
to more of a divided secondary education—vocational and academic
programs are more distinctly separated. Academic programs are meant
to lead to continued studies while vocational programs are meant to lead
to “acknowledged competence and employability” (Government report,
SOU 2008:27, p. 24). This is one of several signs of a far-reaching
adjustment during the early millennium.
Another sign of this adjustment is a gradually stronger emphasis on
entrepreneurship in educational contexts. Between the years 2005 and
2008, a nationwide drive for education in entrepreneurship is carried out
across the nation, the so-called National entrepreneurship program. This
drive is aimed at the whole educational system since the intention is to
create a “leitmotif” in the Swedish educational landscape.
When entrepreneurship runs like a recurring theme through all the educational system it will have an impact. An individual who is formed by entrepreneurial learning in school becomes a workforce asset for the existing organizations. Entrepreneurship also brings with it the courage to take off—to start one’s own business and realize lifetime dreams (Nutek, 2008, p. 11).
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A result of this ambition is that entrepreneurship is written into the new
curriculum for secondary education, which is launched with the new
curriculum of 2011—Lgy11 (Öhrn, Lundahl and Beach 2011).
An important function for school is to provide a general view and coherence. School should stimulate the students’ creativity, curiosity, and self-confidence as well as their will to try out their own ideas and solve problems. The students should have the opportunity to take an initiative and take responsibility as well as develop their ability in working independently and together with others. School should through this contribute to the students developing an approach that promotes entrepreneurship (Lgy11, p. 9).
The inclusion of entrepreneurship in the curriculum points at how the
principles of the market are normalized in education. What previously
stood out as a contradiction between the ambition of education to on the
one hand train citizens for democracy and on the other hand train the
workforce requested by the market (Englund, 1986/2005) now seems
dissolved. Training for democracy and training for entrepreneurship at
this time become integrated parts in a one and the same training project.
The ends and means of politics are, just like in the 1990s, the
responsible citizen—an individual who both can and wants to take
responsibility for forming her/his own life. The role of education is to form
this young person to want to take responsibility for her/his own life in the
future. Less attention is applied to collective, public, and civic factors,
such as the social and economic circumstances, which characterize the
conditions for the will and responsibility of the individual.
Citizen training for therapeutic intervention
Citizen training in the early 2000s is, however, not only about individuals
becoming able to and having a desire to take part in discussions and
wanting to take responsibility in a certain way. It also tries to bridge the
tension between a democratic citizenship that originates from a set of
skills (something that can be learned and taught) and a democratic
citizenship which originates from a set of values (something which can
be created and recreated in a perpetually on-going learning process.
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Democratic competence means being able to reflect on, emotionally process, relate to and act from the basic values (value system). Democratic competence also includes the ability to take part in and influence democratic decision-making processes. The ability to communicate with others on difficult and complex issues, including when opinions and views diverge, is this way put in focus. The democratic competence among children and adolescents is a part of and a condition for their lifelong learning, their social development and health (NAE, 2000b, p. 3ff.).
With the so-called value-system commitment as a basis, NAE here
builds on two central concepts which both point at an understanding of
learning being a process—values and lifelong learning. Democratically
competent is the citizen who has the ability to actively take part in a
lifelong learning process enacted all across the social field. The learning
process is here not only about knowing and learning. It is also about
feeling, about various emotional and thought processes—to reflect,
process, emotionally relate to, communicate and think “right”—which in
turn is put in relation to things for feeling and feeling content.
The necessary democratic competence thereby spans knowledge that is
rather concrete (for example knowledge about what the democratic
system is like), to the willingness to take responsibility as a matter of
inward-looking skills (such as the individual’s capability to see her/his
own inner self and emotional life). Citizen training is hereby given a
therapeutic element. It will both be about right thinking (about life,
society, and oneself) and about emotionally adapting these thoughts.
Thus, it is not enough, pointed out by NAE (2000b, p. 23) in another
context, that the individual “embraces democratic values.” (S)he also
needs to develop a “deeper understanding” where (s)he is capable of
“giving concepts like democracy and justice a more concrete meaning in
order to motivate an action or a standpoint.” This formula, which
originally is aimed at and takes shape within the framework of the
deliberation thought, will in the early 2000s instead be supporting of
citizen training for therapeutic intervention (Bergh et al., 2013).
That people on the education-policy side emphasize that the skills which
the individual acquires must become her/his own is thus nothing new.
Nor the fact that those skills are considered to require anchoring in
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“personal standpoints” and “own experiences” in order for the individual
to independently take “her/his own responsibility” to protect democratic
values—and not only pass on the responsibility for the continued
existence of democracy to somebody else. What is new is that one’s
emotional life is seen as a central part of this context. The key to the
emotional involvement which breeds responsibility is, according to NAE
(2001a, p. 25), the individual’s motivation and willingness to think “right”:
“The individual must remain motivated and keep a positive attitude to
education and learning.” This emotionally and motivation-based side of
citizen training means generating citizens with a “desire to learn, self-
confidence” (NAE, 2001a, p. 25).
Taken together, the three vital parts of citizenship training in Sweden in
the 2000s—deliberation, entrepreneurship, and therapeutic
intervention—take on the form of different ways in which the individual’s
own creation of awareness, willingness, thinking, and knowing become
important parts of citizen competence. In this threefold form of the
citizenship-training role of education, the partly contradictory reference
points of democracy and the market have in different ways fused. With
the desirable formation awareness, knowing, thinking, and feeling—
emphasized in education in the new millennium—citizen formation
certainly takes shape as something aiming outward, toward others and
toward surroundings and society, but we argue that this citizen formation
increasingly is aimed “inwardly”.
Citizen formation for a new millennium in Sweden
The forms of citizen training during the first decade of the millennium
follow the key elements of the development of society, as stated in the
beginning of this article. The democratic and also market-oriented faith in
the individual’s communicative and collective awareness, responsible
doings and emotionally anchored assurance of basic values is
accentuated. In this accentuation, where above all the deliberation
thought substantially will be transformed and renegotiated, one could talk
about an exciting citizen formation consisting of three connected parts: a
citizenship of feeling, doing, and discussing. These connected citizen
ideals will in turn increasingly be characterized by an intensified interest
in people’s inner lives. The citizen training of education has increasingly
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come to be about different ways of mobilizing the individual’s inside, in
order for her/him to take the right stance outwardly, to society and other
people.
An inward, empathetic citizenship
The inward movement is perhaps most evident in therapeutically
oriented citizen training. Citizen formation can here be described as
focusing on the inside of a person in order for her/him to that way feel
good and adequately relate to various outer courses of events and states
(in society and in relation to other people).
This form of citizen formation can include anything from “exercises in
social value systems in order to develop the behaviour and democratic
competence of the students,” forum plays and role plays to different
“variants of conversation and reflection situations as the beginning or the
end of a day or a week (NAE, 2000b, p. 44). Quite often, such activities
are arranged within the frame for what is called Life Skills, which can be
summarized as a number of therapeutic activities taking place in many
schools without having been given the formal role as a school subject
(Grönlien Zetterqvist and Irisdotter Aldenmyr, 2013; Irisdotter, 2014; Löf,
2011). During the first decade of the new millennium, equivalents to Life
Skills in school have an impact also in other fields, such as psychiatry,
correctional treatment, and social work. All over Sweden, different
therapeutically oriented models (or parts of such) are a part of the
current pedagogical work.
What then characterizes this inward and empathetic citizenship?
Through holistically minded therapeutic methods, individuals learn to
“protect” themselves against different “risk factors” which are said to lead
to various kinds of “asocial” and “unwanted behaviour” (Fejes and
Dahlstedt, 2012). Typical of the time, the individual and the inside of that
individual is now in focus (Furedi, 2004). This form of citizen formation is
seen as a “solution” to several of the challenges and problems of society;
mental and physical ill-health, insufficient “social skills,” and insufficient
ability to deal with one’s feelings (Bartholdsson, 2007). Essentially, it is
the individual who is regarded as being both the problem and the
solution. Problems like rows and disturbances, difficulties in education,
Citizen formation for a new millennium in Sweden
215 | P a g e
and unemployment are largely understood as a result of a set of “risk
factors.” Focus is on the inadequacy and incompetence of individuals,
separated from circumstances in society such as poverty, social
relations, family relations and structural inequalities.
According to this kind of citizen formation, everybody has the potential to
succeed—including those who are in the “risk zone.” What each and
everyone need to do to be successful in life is to think positively, to work
on both one’s appearance (clothes, treatment, behaviour) and inner
qualities (motivation, urge, will). A prerequisite for being able to work on
one’s appearance is, however, that one first has worked on her/his inner
qualities, in and through positive thinking (Gunnarsson, 2013; Irisdotter
Aldenmyr, 2012). For an educator, this is about making the youngsters
themselves willing to change—first within themselves and then
outwardly, to society and other people. This citizen formation has as its
purpose that the individual actively should take responsibility for
herself/himself and her/his surroundings, throughout life and with
complete dedication (Englund and Englund, 2012). An important element
here is to create an awareness of consequences among young people;
that is to teach them to see, understand and take the consequences of
their actions. Herein lies the purpose to develop the ability to calculate
with potential—often-beneficial—risks with different ways of acting. To
act “right” is the same as to act within the framework for what is
considered “normal,” something which the individual must judge in a
perpetually on-going dialog, not only with people around her/him but
also, and maybe especially, with herself/himself (Fejes and Dahlstedt,
2012).
An inward-looking, outward-making citizenship
The entrepreneurial aspects of citizen formation are inward-oriented,
creating a basis from which it then works outwardly in more concrete or
practical terms than the therapeutically oriented citizenship training. This
citizen formation is to a higher degree process-oriented. It emphasizes
the will to continually search for new possibilities to invest in. Citizen
formation is here a kind of eternal traveling, with no final destination, a
perpetually ongoing process of coming into existence, always on the
way. This perpetual process of coming into existence is not only of
Maria Olson and Magnus Dahlstedt
216 | P a g e
considerable value within the framework of the inventiveness and logic of
the market (that is, to start and run a business). It is also of great value
well beyond the domains of the market. “Entrepreneurial competences
increase the opportunities of the individual to start and run a business.
Competences such as to see opportunities, to take an initiative, and to
turn ideas into action are of considerable value to the individual and to
society in a wider sense (The Government Office, 2009, p. 12).
Through a willingness to foster (one’s own life) and take responsibility for
this change by acting in the world, this form of citizen formation is about
seeing opportunities, taking initiatives, getting things done, solving
problems, planning, and cooperating. This kind of citizen form stands out
as a present-day hero figure. It is as if the very survival of society
depended on this existence. Although not all citizens will support
themselves financially as entrepreneurs, those who form themselves
through inward-oriented citizenship—to find their own urge and volition—
will gain success in life, be it on the labour market, in studies or
something else.
The ever-increasing impact of this form of citizen formation can be seen
as an expression of further development of the principle of freedom of
choice, which was dominating in the 1990s. Some years into the new
millennium, above all after the change of national government in Sweden
in 2006, the focus of citizen formation of education was no longer the
instrumental ability and will to choose. Rather, it changed focus to now
be in focus of the citizen formation of education. Rather, it is now about
fostering an inward and emotionally anchored ability and will to do and
live the right way. If the ideal working-life suited citizen in the 1990s
appeared in the role as a consumer—of education—(Olson, 2008), (s)he
has in the 2000s more and more come to appear in the role as a product,
which can be traded in the labour market (Carlbaum, 2012).
An inward-anchored, outward-declaring citizenship
The deliberate citizen formation revolves around on the one hand the
individual’s background, experience-based and made-aware anchoring
of certain values and on the other hand the forms, conditions, and rules
for the majority of the discourses (s) he is a part of.
Citizen formation for a new millennium in Sweden
217 | P a g e
In order for one’s own reflections to assume an outward direction, inward
looking is required, where values and thoughts are anchored. The
knowledge of conversing with others—about norms, values, rules for
being together and social contacts—has as its starting point inner
qualities which have been made aware in a way which creates
authenticity, credibility, and truthfulness in relation to other people and
society as a whole. One’s own reflections (and the democratic meaning
of the discourse in this way of reflecting) become an indirect but still
decisive part of this citizen formation.
In terms of citizen formation, it is in and through reflections and talks that
young people are to look for positive outcomes of their own actions in the
world. This citizen formation is not only brought to the fore within
education but also within a number of other professions where a
“reflecting practice” increasingly has come in focus (Fejes and Dahlstedt,
2012). It is about carrying out all-embracing and sweeping work with
oneself (to anchor certain values and an awareness), which makes
possible a good democratic relation and awareness to be able to act
authentically and truthfully in communication with others and the
surrounding society. This assumes that the individual herself/himself
increases “her/his awareness and knowledge.” This citizen formation
includes ongoing and active meta-reflecting in and through talks, of one’s
own and others’ being and acting.
Concluding reflections—a prognosis of our time
Taken together there are three different citizen configurations that stand
out as central in the Swedish educational context of today; an inward
empathetic citizenship, an inward-looking outward-making citizenship
and an inward-anchored outward-declaring citizenship. These three
connected configurations are characterized by an intensified stress on
(young) people’s inner lives in education as well as in society in general.
As a consequence, it seems, the citizen training of education has
increasingly come to be about different ways of mobilizing the
individual’s inside, in order for her/him to take the right stance outwardly,
to society and other people.
Maria Olson and Magnus Dahlstedt
218 | P a g e
What then can generally be said based on these three configurations of
citizen training in the Swedish educational context in the new
millennium—and what does this tell us about our time? Citizen training in
the 2000s takes shape in a seemingly conflict-free way, in a landscape
where clear political conflict lines and clear political governance are
missing. It is difficult to distinguish political alternatives shaping a future
beyond the prevailing order of our time. Even if the discourse climate of
the 2000s stands out as apolitical, the good citizen and citizen training
still follow politically decided images of how this citizen thinks, reasons,
and acts.
In the early 2000s, we can see a strong emphasis on the role of
education in working life. The role of education now becomes to provide
skills, which are requested and useful on a competitive, and to an even
higher extent individual- and performance-focused, labour market. An
expression of this is that entrepreneurship for the first time was written
into the curriculum for secondary education. Just like in the 1990s, it is
the individual and not the collective that is brought to the fore. According
to the citizen ideal of the 2000s, initiative taking is a virtue that not only is
useful and valuable on the labour market, but also in society as a whole,
in nearly every walk of life. The tension between democracy and the
market is almost completely dissolved, owing to the fact that an
enterprising spirit is also regarded as embracing the core values of
democracy. The enterprising individual—the entrepreneur—is not only
economically useful but is at the same time also democratically
competent. The entrepreneur is not only driven by a rational utilitarian
maximization but also by her/his own feelings. (S) he is driven by the will
to change as well as faith in herself/himself and her/his own ability.
According to a therapeutic understanding of society and individual, one
can say that the entrepreneur is animated.
Democracy is in this conflict-free climate understood as something
already given. It is not citizens who form democracy but the other way
around, democracy which forms citizens. The same goes for the market.
Democracy is seen as a set of values, which a citizen is meant to adopt.
These values are to a large extent already given. Just like a citizen is
meant to adjust to and embody democratic ideals, (s) he should embrace
Citizen formation for a new millennium in Sweden
219 | P a g e
and adjust to the ideals of the market. Neither democracy nor the values
of the market nor logic, however, seems to be open to scrutiny and
questioning for the good citizen.
Accordingly, neither today’s democracy nor the market is (and cannot
be) open for discussion or negotiation. That way, citizen training is about
consolidating the principles of the market and about having the citizens
make these principles their own. In the 2000s, more radical forms of
citizen training almost seem to be something threatening, something
which challenges democracy rather than creating new opportunities for it.
It is true that one of the aspects of the citizen in the 2000s, the
entrepreneur, has the potential for a change; (s) he is driven just by a will
to change and create. But there is always a pronounced and overarching
purpose: to create financial gain and benefit for the sake of democracy
itself. The entrepreneur as a citizen figure is subjected to the conditions
of the market—(s) he is one with the market.
The only thing we can do as citizens according to the prevailing is to
recreate the existing order. The striving for change is not first of all
outwardly aimed, but inwardly. This ambition is about changing our
selves rather than society. It is up to the individual to create her/his own
future. But the future, we would argue, is something that we create
together. A prerequisite for this creating is, perhaps, that we to a lesser
extent than what seems to be at hand assume that we already are
democratic or even that open discussions in which we take part actually
are democratic. What is required is action and communication through
which our time becomes visible as political and thereby possible to
change through collective acting. A change of our time and our future
requires outward action, not just inward reflection. Our prognosis of
citizen formation in education in our time shows that this required double
course for change increasingly seems to be limited to the latter, to the
individual’s inward-looking. There has in the new millennium been a
heated debate about “the crisis of democracy” where it has been claimed
that democracy is subject to various kinds of threats—in the form of, for
example, terrorism, declining citizen involvement, a financial crisis, and
widespread alienation. But the biggest threat to democracy is perhaps
the idea that our time is post-political, democracy completed, and
Maria Olson and Magnus Dahlstedt
220 | P a g e
citizenship introvert. As an answer to this threat, there is nothing else to
do than to recapture the future as the collective room for action and
change that it can be.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (2010-2013),
as part of the research project FOLKS, Forskning om Livskunskap i
skolan [Research on Life Skills in school].
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Author Details
Maria Olson, Associate Professor, Centre for Teaching and Learning in
the Humanities, Stockholm University/School of Health and Education,
University of Skövde, Sweden
Magnus Dahlstedt, Associate Professor, Department of Social and
Welfare Studies, Linköping University, Sweden
Correspondence details; maria.olson@cehum.su.se,
magnus.dahlstedt@liu.se
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